Scripture Central

In this episode of Handmaidens, Harems, and Heroines, Lynne Hilton Wilson explores Exodus 1–6, where the story of Israel shifts from refuge to oppression in Egypt. Centuries after Jacob’s family was welcomed during Joseph’s lifetime, their descendants had grown into a large and thriving people. A new Pharaoh, fearing their numbers, subjected the Israelites to harsh bondage. Yet even in this dark moment, the narrative highlights the courage and faith of remarkable women who quietly but powerfully advance God’s purposes. The Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah refuse Pharaoh’s command to kill newborn Hebrew boys, choosing reverence for God over obedience to an unjust ruler. Their bravery becomes the first act of resistance in the Exodus story, demonstrating how faithful women can stand as protectors of life and covenant.

The account then centers on the women who preserve the life of the infant Moses—Jochebed, his faithful mother who entrusts him to the Lord; Miriam, his watchful sister who helps ensure his safety; and Pharaoh’s daughter, whose compassion leads her to rescue and adopt the Hebrew child. In these opening chapters of Exodus, women act with moral courage, compassion, and spiritual insight, preparing the way for Israel’s deliverance. As God begins to raise up Moses to lead His covenant people, these heroines remind us that divine work often begins through quiet acts of faith. For Latter-day Saint readers, their stories testify that obedience to God—especially in moments of risk—invites His protection and moves His covenant purposes forward.

The natural state of all things trends toward chaos. That process of degradation is broadly defined as “entropy.” Without the intervention of focused energy to counteract entropy, all things are continually breaking down, trending toward disorder.

God not only offsets entropy but also creates order out of chaos.

While God builds up, Satan tears down. While God’s house “… is a house of order…” Satan’s realm is confusion and chaos. While God is the Creator, Satan is the destroyer.

Without intervention, entropy and chaos prevail spiritually and individually as well as physically and universally.

Chaos, darkness, and death are all consequences of not keeping God’s commandments. “Behold, mine house is a house of order, saith the Lord God, and not a house of confusion.”

How blessed we are to have God’s commandments. What safety, protection, and order come from keeping them.

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In this compelling installment of Handmaidens, Harems, and Heroines, Dr. Lynne Hilton Wilson continues her illuminating walk through the later chapters of Genesis (42–50), bringing to life the women and cultural dynamics woven through the final act of the Joseph narrative.
Viewers will hear fresh insights about the ancient Egyptian world where Hebrew women—unlike in many neighboring societies—could own property, manage legal affairs, and exercise a surprising degree of autonomy in family life and commerce in some contexts—setting the stage for understanding how Jacob’s family navigated life in Egypt’s Delta. Drawing on historical and cultural sources, Dr. Wilson highlights how these social realities shaped the experiences of Israelite women in a foreign land.

This video also explores Jacob’s visit to Pharaoh in Genesis 47, a moment that underscores the dramatic rise of Joseph’s family from famine refugees to honored guests in Egypt’s royal court, with Jacob himself offering blessings and receiving respect from the king.
We also meet Serah, the daughter (or granddaughter) of Asher, whose brief biblical mention belies a rich later tradition about her role in preserving family memory and legacy in the land of Egypt.
Plus, Dr. Wilson ties in recent archaeological work in the Goshen region (Tell el-Dab’a)—ancient Avaris—where excavations reveal a thriving Semitic city in the Nile Delta that may illuminate the cultural backdrop of Israel’s settlement in Egypt and offer tangible context for the stories we read in Genesis.

Your Eternal Father loves you more than anyone has ever loved another. All He does is for you and His children. He offers you and all His children everywhere supernal gifts, but most of His children neither receive nor rejoice in His marvelous gifts, and as a result, they are weak and unhappy, and heaven weeps with them.

Can you imagine the sadness and disappointment of Our Father if we do not accept His magnificent gifts, when His children ignore Him after all He has done? Enoch saw that not only Heavenly Father but the whole of the heavens weep when we refuse or neglect His gifts.

What are the greatest gifts our Father offers all His children everywhere from the beginning of time?

His Son, His Spirit, and His life. Those are God’s greatest gifts to His children. To accept and receive those gifts is the best of all human conditions. What is the inconceivably high price paid to make them available? The creation, the fall, the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and all the Gods have done and do “… to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”

Words cannot describe, nor can we conceive or measure the height, the breadth, the depth of the gift of God’s own Son. “No tongue can speak, neither can there be written by any man, neither can the hearts of men conceive (anything) so great and marvelous” as Jesus Christ, the Son of God by whom salvation and all good things are possible.

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